The Hermosa Beach Planning Commission has blocked a request from a landmark Pacific Coast Highway sex shop to nearly triple its number of arcade booths, which owners installed about a year ago but just sought approval for Tuesday.

The council unanimously denied a series of

zoning-code variances that would have legalized 14 booths that city officials believe the Tender Box built last summer in an upstairs area permitted only as an apartment.

“We’ve never seen a violation this blatant,” said eight-year commission veteran Peter Hoffman. “There is absolutely no basis to make those findings for a variance.”

The commission’s decision Tuesday came in tandem with a discovery last week that somebody had bored holes through the walls of the Tender Box’s new arcade booths, which have locked doors that allow patrons to privately watch pornographic videos.

Holes between the booths can facilitate sexual activity between men.

“The booths did have holes drilled in them connecting the booths and creating a `glory hole,”‘ Hermosa Police Chief Greg Savelli said Tuesday.

He added that the holes appeared professionally drilled – possibly with a circular saw – and “similar to how you create a doorknob hole,” but they were covered Monday, Savelli said.

At its location since 1973, the Tender Box does not meet existing zoning codes; it has been grand-

fathered into compliance.

Its 1994 conditional-use permit allows the shop to sell adult toys, novelty items and videos, as well as operate eight viewing booths on the store’s bottom floor, said Ken Robertson, the city’s acting community development director.

The operating permit dictated that a second-story portion of the shop in the 800 block of PCH must remain a nonconforming apartment and an interior staircase connecting the dwelling and shop must be destroyed, Robertson said.

But city officials discovered in June that owners of the Tender Box had rebuilt the staircase and converted the 1,000-square-foot upstairs area into a dimly lighted arcade area without seeking building permits, said Bob Rollins, a Hermosa Beach code enforcement officer.

City policy allows businesses and residents in similar situations to seek retroactive approval, but the commission’s decision Tuesday to deny approval was anticlimactic.

Despite the discovery of any glory holes, Tender Box owners clearly failed to meet the stringent criteria needed for variances that would have allowed less parking and a closer proximity to nearby houses.

Roger Diamond, an attorney for Tender Box owners, billed the shop’s renovations as “slight changes” that didn’t affect the community.

“(Owners) went ahead by mistake and expanded,” Diamond said. “But the mistake might be a blessing.”

The lawyer said the original eight booths downstairs were already inoperable, but commissioners didn’t buy Diamond’s offer to close six of the upstairs arcades, which would yield no overall increase in booth numbers.

The discussion at a packed City Hall was graphic Tuesday.

One of nearly two dozen residents who addressed the commission read verbatim a posting he found on Craigslist, an online classified advertising site, soliciting a “discreet, no hassle” lunchtime encounter at the Tender Box’s upstairs video booths.

Police said a setup like the Tender Box’s isn’t illegal, per se, but the public sex it can facilitate is.

Savelli said no one in the past week has been arrested for using the holes, though he said years ago a police officer participating in an undercover sting operation there was solicited.

It was business as usual Wednesday at the Tender Box, as customers filtered into the tiny shop’s main floor hawking videos and novelties, and up a narrow staircase leading to the arcade booths upstairs.

Employees had covered the holes, and owners wouldn’t allow patrons to bring bags upstairs in fear they would punch through the patches, a store worker said.

Shop owners were also considering placing metal between the booths to prevent any more drilling, the employee added.

Diamond said the upstairs booths will remain open.

The city’s code enforcement case against the Tender Box will not be filed with the city prosecutor until owners have exhausted their legal recourses, Rollins said.

Sex shops have been under assault in Hermosa Beach in the past few months.

The store hoped to set up shop on the southwest corner of Eighth Street and PCH, coincidentally across the road from the Tender Box, but residents rallied and protested the store.

The Planning Commission ultimately denied the shop’s request for a conditional-use permit, and the building’s landlord withdrew his lease offer.

The same residents came out in droves this week to battle the Tender Box’s expansion.

“All the same issues are there,” said resident Melinda Curtis. “The issues that we had with the (Condom Revolution) company – we still have the same issues. Why allow them to go any further? They were fine the way they were.”

Diamond, a Santa Monica attorney specializing in First Amendment cases, threatened Tuesday to file a lawsuit against the city challenging the constitutionality of Hermosa Beach’s zoning code, which he argued doesn’t allow space for adult-themed business.

Diamond’s clients plan to appeal the commission’s decision to the City Council, he said.

But many Hermosa residents welcomed a legal challenge.

“The Tender Box is not a good neighbor,” said Third Street resident Ashley Beck. “We’ll be happy to ride people like this out of town. They’re vultures just trying to make their way at the expense of the community.”